Millions of individuals suffer from either partial or total loss of walking ability. This disabled state can result from traumatic injury, stroke, or other medical conditions that cause disorders that affect muscular control. Regardless of origin, the onset and continuance of walking impairment can result in additional negative physical and/or psychological outcomes for the afflicted individual. In order to improve the health and quality of life of patients with walking impairment, the development of devices that can improve or restore walking function is of significant utility to the medical and therapeutic communities. Beyond walking impairment, there are a range of medical conditions that interfere with muscular control of the appendages, resulting in loss of function and other adverse conditions for the affected individual. The development of devices to improve or restore these functions is also of great interest to the medical and therapeutic communities.
Human exoskeleton devices are being developed in the medical field to restore and rehabilitate proper muscle function for people with disorders that affect muscle control. These exoskeleton devices are a system of motorized braces that can apply forces to the wearer's appendages. In a rehabilitation setting, exoskeletons are controlled by a physical therapist who uses one of a plurality of possible inputs to command an exoskeleton control system. In turn, the exoskeleton control system actuates the position of the motorized braces, resulting in the application of force to, and typically movement of, the body of the exoskeleton wearer.
Exoskeleton control systems prescribe and control trajectories in the joints of an exoskeleton. These trajectories can be prescribed as position based, force based, or a combination of both methodologies, such as that seen in an impedance controller. Position based control systems can be modified directly through modification of the prescribed positions. Force based control systems can also be modified directly through modification of the prescribed force profiles.
During a rehabilitation session and/or over the course of rehabilitation, it highly beneficial for the physical therapist to have the ability to modify the prescribed positions and/or the prescribed force profiles depending on the particular physiology or rehabilitation stage of a patient. It is highly complex and difficult to construct an exoskeleton control interface that enables the full range of modification desired by a physical therapist during rehabilitation. In addition, it is important that the control interface not only allows the full range of modifications that may be desired by a physical therapist, but that the interface with the physical therapist be intuitive to the physical therapist, who may not be highly technically oriented.
There exists an unmet need to provide a device and method that allows a physical therapist to modify the prescribed positions and/or the prescribed force profiles of an exoskeleton intuitively, using similar command methods to those used upon the appendages of a patient prior to the use of exoskeleton-based techniques.